Mastering the U-Turn

Several years ago four of us guys climbed in a SUV for an evening road trip to St. Louis for a Cardinals baseball game. The plan was to park the SUV near a pub that I had visited before with a friend named Allison and ride the trolley to the park, and while the trip to St. Louis was uneventful, locating the pub was a bit of a problem.

After searching for some time, and losing our way in a myriad of downtown oneway streets, I called Allison and put her on speaker phone hoping she might help, but to no avail.

Finally she says, " Why don't you guys just stop and ask someone?"

There was a momentary silence, then a burst of laughter erupted and gufaws from the four of us in the SUV.

"What's so funny?" Allison asks.

"There's four guys in a SUV, and you think we are gonna stop and ask for directions?" I ask incredulously at the mere suggestion.

Again, another roar of laughter.

Since then, it still never occurs to me to ask for directions; but I do make a point of either mapping out my trip and use a GPS, yet I have still found the use of the U-turn a great tool. In fact, I cannot over-rate the usefullness of the U-turn; a skill frequent travelers must master in order to navigate through life's turns and missed directions.

Rules to mastering the U-turn.

Of course the first thing to consider making the U-turn is recognizing that you are indeed going the wrong direction. Here is an important note; making U-turns before your certain you are going the wrong direction will only confuse the situation more. Therefore, be certain that the direction you a have taken is truly moving you further away from your goal.

Before engaging in the U-turn keep safety in mind. Be on the lookout in all directions before initiating your manuaver; is there sufficient room for turn, be sure there is no one coming the other direction to avoid head on collision. In other words, make sure you aren't going to hurt anyone when you change course.

Make your U-turn quickly. Nothing worse than doing a U-turn in slow motion for everyone to gawk at and be the laughing stock on the road. No need for long apologies, partial turns, or creation of a commotion, just remember avoid impeding the flow of traffic for others who do happen to know where they are going.

I must admit having not always followed all of the above advice and on occasion made so many U-turns I could have been performing figure eights, though these days I try to make a clear and straight course.

Leaving San Diego

So here is a brief rundown of my last few weeks leaving one assignment for another. The plan was to move from San Diego to Sacramento but the timing was lousy as I had hoped for a little bit of time to allow getting set up and find a place to live. Instead, I finish working four nights in a row, sleep for a few hours on Wednesday morning, and take off for the 500 mile drive in order to get to Sacramento for an orientation that Saturday and start work Monday.

Bothersome emails kept arriving from the agency for such requirements as TB mask fitting verification. “Where am I supposed to find that?” I ask.
“Perhaps you can ask your current hospital for one”, I am told.

Now when am I supposed to include this in my schedule of work, sleep, and driving 500 miles I wonder, but decide it is worth the time stopping by the human resource office as I am driving out of town just in case. They had it! What luck was that?

After faxing a copy to the agency clerk, she then informs me that the chest x-ray I had taken three years ago is no longer valid and must be retaken prior to starting orientation, so if I could just swing by my local physician that would be great.

“Oh, yeah, my local physician is 1,000 miles away; I’ll just give him a ring” I scream at my email while embarking on the drive north. I call the clerk and using the most polite and professional voice I can muster explain my ordeal, and she agrees to email suggestions for clinics in Sacramento for when I arrive; which doesn’t happen until around 1:00 AM after an eleven hour drive. Mary has the room already taken care of as she flew up ahead of me.

The next day I locate a clinic which agrees to take the x-ray and we spend the next two days locating our new home, except I also have over 12 hours of online orientation to fit in while using the slowest internet connection since the old phone dialup I used over ten years ago, lesson I learned here is that hotel wi-fi does not mean high speed; the online orientation took more like 16 hours.

Locating proved to be more difficult in Sacramento than our previous experiences, but we ended up with a nice two bedroom, two bath apartment that was exactly within the price range we were looking for. Craigslist was again our best tool, but patience was needed this time round. During the interim we stayed at a location that offered small one bedroom cottages that could be rented by the week and offered significant savings over a hotel.

Ten days after the moving adventure began, things are back to normal again, or as much as normal gets to be in our life, and we are ready to explore our new location.

Housing in San Diego

For any travel nurse taking an assignment in San Diego, there is a great place to live coming available mid January. It's a wonderful 2 bedroom 1 bath unit in a great neighborhood. Check it on on Craiglist

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/apa/1511652919.html

Working Extra Shifts

Can't sleep and the wi-fi isn't working at the hotel Mary & I are visiting so I sit with at least a decent cup of coffee in the hotel lobby borrowing the guest computer till a few people wake up to press the wi-fi reset button.

Yes, taking a few days off to visit friends for the holidays and that is my subject this morning, taking time off. One of the most frequent questions I am asked about travel nursing is about the pay being as good as what the rumors say?

I suppose if a travel nurse wanted to make great paycheck and work extra shifts each week they would bring home some good money, but that is also true of many other professions. Even a friend who is a truck driver logged in tons of hours a week and bragged about the pay, trouble was he couldn't keep it up and when it was all done and over with, he didn't really have anything to show for it.

Nursing shifts are usually twelve hours long, resulting in three day work weeks, hence four days off. Not bad! Here is the dig though, we have a very stressful profession and need that time off to recoup. In my view, to work extra shifts for any serious length of time will increase the stress on your body and lead to more problems in the long run.

I recall talking to a massage therapist who had all her therapists take a half hour break between clients to rejuvenate and center themselves. A great idea, but totally not practical for nurses, and so those days we have off need to be used to recharge and de-stress ourselves between difficult shifts.

Illness and burnout are usually the results from not heeding this advice, and both can be disastrous for travel nurses. Nothing worse than being hundreds of miles from home and feeling sick, especially if you are new to an area and have no one to help. Burnout though, can ruin a travel career and damages the profession for all of us, as the most memorable experiences staff has with travelers can be the worst ones.

So here is my thoughts on nurses wanting to travel and make big bucks by working extra shifts a week. Stay home! You can work extra shifts where you are locally and share your few moments away from the hospital with loved ones. Perhaps you will see that a few extra dollars aren't worth it, and realize that the overtime money you are making will most likely end up in a vapor that disapears with the next billing statement.

Travel Jobs Return

The phone rings, and though I rarely answer it these days, I see an out of state area code and pick it up. A recruiter; Jenny, is calling "Gary I have lots of exciting positions in the ICU for you", she says excitedly.

Jenny begins to explain that during the summer she had less than 200 positions available and it was the worst she had ever seen in her career. I think most experienced travel nurses can attest to this as well. Now, things have changed and she has over 1000 positions to fill.

I explain to her that during the summer I had locked in an additional three months in San Diego to wait out the work slowdown. Jenny thinks that was smart; I tell her there are worse places to enjoy the holidays than San Diego. She laughs and agrees.

A second recruiter calls the next day and tells me basically the same thing; lots of needs for travelers. Out of several travelers I started with in San Diego most of them ended up taking permanent work in the area. For some it was the location that helped make up their mind to stay, but for many it was the lack of travel alternatives.

I think it is important for travelers and those interested in travel to reflect back on this past summer and take away some lessons.

The sky isn't falling. I heard this a lot from new travelers who thought the travel industry was over and finished with. I don't these new people understood travel, as travelers can actually save money for hospitals when used correctly. We provide short term staffing needs for when hospitals need us the most, without the expense of additional year round staffing.

Nothing stays the same. There is a good because there was a bad, how else can we judge how one time is better than another? This season of over-staffing helped cull travelers that were not prepared, as well as prevent those from entering who were not ready for the commitment travel requires.

Travelers are appreciated again. Nothing like working short on staffing for a hardy welcome to a traveler there to help out.

It pays to save. Having gone through a tough time serves as a reminder for travelers that there is no such thing as guaranteed work, and more than any profession, a traveler needs to have that six month savings in place.

So I plan to remain in Southern California for the holidays and will be looking for a new location in January. I am not concerned where we go or when we will find out. The weather is too good not to miss out here.

An Ode to Coffee

Good coffee in the morning, rich, robust, and black;
a tall cup filled, and a pot with no lack.

My mouth does welcome it's taste;
my body greets its warmth, as I lean back in my chair for there is no haste.

No; this morning I have no rush, no agenda, or plan;
simply to soak up morning sun rays; and later fry eggs in a pan.

Oh, this cup of coffee greets me well;
it's steam rises and is delicious the aroma does tell.

From bean to grinder and pot to cup;
today has not started till I finish this up.

Why Blog?

The other day I met an employee of Google. Boy did that make my day! We talked about phones, androids, chrome browsers, and servers, and the future in general. He asked me why I was interested in the Google phone number and I sounded like a salesman with a great pitch as I listed off reasons to own one. Hope I get the invite soon.

When sharing our conversation with a coworker I was asked why I would want to blog?

A peculiar question to me, none the less I will give her an answer, but only as a blog response.

I travel because I enjoy seeing new locations and of course a brave attempt at avoiding cold winters. Though I have another journey as well, the one called life; for no matter where I travel, I find that I am always there. So to avoid the stumbles along the way I think it best to take notes, hence the blog .

Too often in life our mistakes are destined to repeat themselves. Blogging is an effort to straighten out the tangle of choices and help prevent them from reoccurring. The effort it requires to sit and consider what has been going on in my life and present an orderly and written account helps me keep a focus on what is important. Yet, even more importantly it has been helping me focus on releasing those things that are unimportant.

Katherine Hepburn was once asked how she was able to live such a successful life and she responded saying, "Elimination. I simply got rid of anyone and anything that really didn't matter one bit to me. You know, dead weight, excess baggage, that sort of thing."

At first the elimination process began with material things, and believe me, when traveling; less is more. I learned that the more I got rid of things the more free and released I felt. Now, my focus on elimination is on habits and wasted time.

I have some time wasters that I am currently working on. Will I feel just as free after releasing them as I did material stuff? Time will tell. One thing is for certain, I should have more available time to complete those things which are important to me.

Blogging about this helps me feel accountable, as I am sure someone is reading it, and if not; at least it helps me have a reference point to come back and visit and see how I have progressed. I remember the first time I was looking for an assignment, and wonder if the next experience will go better than the last one. What kind of obstacles will Mary and I overcome to get there? All these things can be kept as a record and useful notes.

That is why I blog.